05.05.2009, 18:35
THE WIDOW OF EPHESUS.
" Oh weak unstable wandering memory ;"
Came forth a sudden voice from an old tomb,
By the way-side, like Pompeii's : " for the doom
Of Ephesus, so, justly clings to me ;
Making my love a byword ; I am she
Thenceforward called The Widow, since the gloom
Of funeral caverns was my bridal room ;
But how that deed unholy came to be,
Ask many a feeble utterance of strong will,
Many a faint priest of fame's divinity ;"
So said the mourning voice, and then was still :
But from the thronging drear infinity
Of shades, that answered to the summons, I
Sped, as the heron speeds, under a hill.
" Oh weak unstable wandering memory ;"
Came forth a sudden voice from an old tomb,
By the way-side, like Pompeii's : " for the doom
Of Ephesus, so, justly clings to me ;
Making my love a byword ; I am she
Thenceforward called The Widow, since the gloom
Of funeral caverns was my bridal room ;
But how that deed unholy came to be,
Ask many a feeble utterance of strong will,
Many a faint priest of fame's divinity ;"
So said the mourning voice, and then was still :
But from the thronging drear infinity
Of shades, that answered to the summons, I
Sped, as the heron speeds, under a hill.